


The Most Little of the Riddles

by StarOverHeaven



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Severitus, Severus Snape Adopts Harry Potter, Tom Riddle | Voldemort Adopts Harry Potter, a brief POV of a child possibly younger than 2, and the run on sentences that come with it, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 12:32:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13387863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarOverHeaven/pseuds/StarOverHeaven
Summary: "Dumbledore," Tom Riddle said lowly, "Must think me a fool."





	The Most Little of the Riddles

Tom Riddle considered his nervous follower for a long moment, his chin set delicately upon the back of his hand. His potion master was far too controlled to shuffle his feet, but he looked like he wanted to, the longer he looked at him. 

"Dumbledore," Tom said lowly, "Must think me a fool." 

He stood, a clean movement that betrayed grace well-learned. Red eyes burrowed into Severus for a long moment. "Especially so if he thinks that he can use this… _prophecy_ to bait me so easily." 

"My lord?" 

Tom curled his lip up in a cruel smirk. "Did you know, dear Severus," He drawled, "That July is _most certainly_ not the seventh month? Oh, on the calendar it is- but it is the month of Julius Caesar, who was so pitiful to name a month about himself. No, the seventh month is September, the month of seven. So your news is as uninteresting as much as the fact that he suspects you are a spy is not." 

There is a low burn inside him. An indignation, that Dumbledore believes him to be so far gone as to fall for such a pitiful trick. Though, he amends, if he did act so… insane to his enemies, to throw them off, with that awful glamour… to impress upon the man that he was this easy to trick, he was doing something right. 

For the next thirty minutes, he seeks the information that Severus hides just barely with a pointed, silvery tongue, and draws out just how Severus got the information. They know one another well, but Tom knows that Severus had always held a certain, higher loyalty to his first love, Lily. It is from there that he discovers the woman was on the light side and had married James Potter, whom Severus hated so fiercely. She had contacted him in hopes that he would play the double-sided spy, so that she would know if Voldemort came for her son. 

This belief was caused by Dumbledore's false knowledge that July was indeed the seventh month. Stupidity at its finest, Tom knew. So Dumbledore, hearing of her plans, latched onto Severus as though he was simply a pawn, offering him a job at Hogwarts as the potions master to make it less suspicious to communicate with him while offering an 'in' to put off to Tom. 

But Severus and Tom were not merely servant and master, but friends. This led to his torn loyalties, Tom knew, but it was rare that Tom found anyone interesting to befriend. 

He shooed the man to destress, as he looked a bit ill from the prolonged anxiety (as Nagini, he had seen, had been eyeing him like he was dinner, to which he disapproved her with his eyes) and turned his attention away. Seventh month… died… Hm… 

He retrieved from the cabinet he put newspapers the last three years of papers, setting the box down. Then, sitting at the deep mahogany desk, he withdrew the first of many, swiping over to the births that had been shown in the paper. From there, he got to business. 

~-~ 

Most interesting, Tom Riddle thought, sitting back and crossing his fingers over his lap. The newspaper in front of him read, in especially tiny print, a single birth on the last day of September. ' _Harry James Potter was born premature on the 30th of September, 1979, to the Potters by Lily and James. His godfathers Severus and Sirius welcome him with warmth._ ' 

Premature, in the wizarding world, was bad. Premature births often ended up with unstable, almost _broken_ magic, because in the womb while the baby developed their magic would develop twice fold the speed of the fetus. When premature, the developing magic was ripped from the mothers and had nothing to grab onto. This confused the bloodlines of the child, too. 

Premature births were awful for wizarding families because, while one CAN get them into St Mungos to assist them, and donate large doses of their magic, people were stupid and often let them be, making it so that the magic of the infant grew from the magic around them. But without sole donations of _one_ or at max _two_ sources of magic (from the parents) the baby would have the blood of the parents and could therefore inherit, but their magic would be utterly different. That, and the child's magic might not even recognize the parents when they finally deemed him 'stable enough' to begin living with them again. 

This often resulted in lost inherited abilities, like the earth-elemental from the Longbottom family, or the leaning to Blood Magic from the Blacks. This meant that, wherever little Harry was now, he had inherited the magic of those _around him_ in _very tiny increments._ Depending on where he was in St Mungos, his magic could be utterly deformed with tiny shards of magic from other families, but since none of them were complete shards of it, they would cause his magic to inflate randomly, making him more powerful, but less stable. 

This also meant that his magic had not recognized a parenting bond yet, because premature births often meant the mothers magic ripped their connection apart early because it thought that the baby's magic was a parasite. This was especially common to muggleborn carrier parents, because without the breeding from other lines like the purebloods who had mixed with many other lines, they could not recognize the magic of their child as their offspring unless it was the same general kind of magic. This was why purebloods chose the pairings of their children carefully, too, taking into account the cores of both their children and their match, how they got along, and the power of the matched family. 

And Lily Potters magic had obviously thought the boy a parasite due to the fact that his core was not much like her own. With Harry's father being purely light in core, and his two godfathers bearing dark cores, his mothers light magical core had probably recognized him as a parasite due to the fact that Harry had ended up with a Grey or Dark core, as the parents of the boy had both been Light and the tinting of Dark from the godfathers had confused her core, as she had not bonded with a Dark core and therefore her magic only recognized that her child had been tainted somehow. 

It was not uncommon for the fetus of magical parents to be the first to be afflicted with magical parasites in the womb, either. Growing, maturing magic was much more beneficial to magical parasites to integrate with, so their first joining tended to be with a fetus or a small child. So magical carriers had a solution; get rid of it before it could grow any bigger. So the child often died, but the parasite died too. 

Sometimes, though, the parent didn't ditch the child. This was often in the case of the parent having been afflicted with a magical parasite at some point, and happened _very_ rarely. Like in the case of the Obscurial who got pregnant in southwestern China, who birthed her child. In doing so, her Obscurus ditched her and went to her child instead, making the child an Obscura Optima, the optimal host for the Obscurus. They were born in perfect harmony, two halves of a whole, and thus the host did not die, and the Obscurus didn't either. They were, however, especially rare, as Obscurus hosts did not really live beyond the age of ten. And an Obscurus Optima had no reason to pass their symbiotic parasite down to any of their children, so they were often the death of that Obscurus, though the chance of an Obscurus reappearing in their child's line later on was possible. 

_The real question here,_ Tom thought acidly, _where the boy is. I need to see him, know him, check and see if I am correct…_

And who would know where the boy was? _Severus,_ Tom thought, _surely he would keep track of his godson…_

And so later on that evening a dark colored owl, mixed breed, with shockingly gold eyes landed on the desk of Severus Snape in his cottage in the middle-eastern part of Wales, which was indeed in the middle of nowhere, a bit distant from the nearest town. It dropped a letter on the man's desk. The black envelope gleamed with quality, and the golden colored wax was stamped, perfectly round, upon it as a seal. A serpent judged him on the wax with narrowed eyes, wrapped around a ring with a cut stone. 

Severus, who oft received letters instead of rude, sharp arm summons when the time called for it, sighed. He shooed the owl to the perch in the corner of the room to rest, eat and drink before it flew back to the Dark Lord's manor, which resided by Snake Road in the middle of a preserve somewhere (he only knew because he asked once, as the long stone driveway had befuddled him once as the manor was in the middle of nowhere and _why on earth did the Dark Lord need a driveway when they could just apparate there?)_. 

He opened the letter smoothly with his letter opener, simple steel, and examined the fine parchment with a raised eyebrow. 

_Severus,_

_I have found whom I believe this farce of a baiting technique to be about, if ever it was true. Harry James Potter, listed as a premature birth in 1979. Likely out of wedlock, I believe. But that doesn't matter. What worries me is not whether he is truly a Potter or not, but that he was premature, and I have yet to see the boy anywhere alongside the Potter family. Not on any outings, or indeed anywhere in their home._

_You are listed as the boys godfather. I want you to find him, wherever he is, and bring him to me if you can. He may perhaps be my enemy, in the future, according to this prophecy… But I would not wish him to be alone and forgotten, wherever he is, as I was. This is your instruction. I expect you to follow it._

_As his godfather, if he remains in St Mungos even to this day, you are allowed to take the boy yourself. If he remains there, I suspect the Potters, foul and light as they are, suspected him a squib or bound to a parasite. Or worse, they may have simply put him straight to those Muggle relatives of the missus Potter, without even checking._

_You have my full permission to take him away from there, however you must do it, if they have. In the envelope is a small sum of galleons that I have given you to retrieve the boy with. Whatever is left you can use on any sort of expense for the boys comfort, and if any potions are needed to restore him in any way, you have permission to use the Gringotts slip to buy the ingredients required._

_LV_

A gringotts slip… Severus put the letter down, and pulled the envelope open again. And indeed, at the bottom there was a small, yellowed strip of parchment. Pulling it out revealed that the sum of galleons was well over even Severus's ability, ranging to almost a million. Once again, he wondered how the Dark Lord had gained so much monetary value, before throwing the thought from his mind. He didn't want to know. 

Standing, he slipped the letter back into the envelope and put it into a harmless cooking book in his kitchen to hide it. He would only burn it when his duty was done, to tell the Dark Lord he had succeeded. If he failed, he would not. 

Donning his more muggle-blending attire, he floo'd to St Mungo's and appropriated the attention of a desk clerk. Five minutes later he was leaving, fury in his heart. The boy was moved some time ago, by the Potters. Ten minutes of using a muggle-locating charm later, and he was arriving at #4 Privet Drive, eyes narrowed as he knocked on the door. 

It was opened by a shrew of a woman with a pinched face, gaunt cheeks and a bony, long-limbed physique. It seemed Petunia had not changed at all, since he last saw her- still a bitter, horse-faced woman with a hatred for magic. He pushed his way inside, and stunned her. He would obliviate the muggles after he found his godson. 

His godson who was not upstairs, nor in the living room, or in the kitchen. It took him nearing half an hour to find the boy, who was curled up, thin and far too tiny, under the stairwell in a _cupboard, of all things._ The boy was far, far too little, and though he should be nearly a year old he was more the size of a baby, he was so tiny. 

And when Severus picked the boy up he almost cried- he was barely above the weight of a babe! And Harry hardly responded, curled up as he was, nearly hidden in his jacket. Snarling with inner fury, he obliviated the muggles and transfigured a lamp into an even more abused looking, tinier, starved Harry Potter and put it under the stairs in the cupboard. A few memory charmed and the Dursley family had left on spontaneous vacation, and their house was ordered to be redecorated and remodeled on the inside- including that their stairwell was to be turned into shelving units with slat panels to cover it, in case they needed the storage. 

Severus left with a pop of apparition, and the house stood far too quiet in his absence. It would take nary a week for the contracted remodeling company to find the dead boy in the cupboard, already beginning to decay slowly after he died from starvation. From there, the police would be called. 

But Severus didn't care about all that. No, what he cared about was getting his godson home, filling him with soft soups and nutrient potions, and getting him warm again. Then, and only then, would he bring the boy to meet the Dark Lord. 

~-~ 

Harry was quite content, for once, just existing. He wasn't sure when he would wake up from this wonderful dream. You know, he was a very smart child! He knew when he was dreaming. Because this had to be a dream. He was pretty sure that this man in dark clothes was not actually his godfather, and that his warm, full stomach was just a wonderful figment of his imagination, because Harry didn't _deserve_ good things. That's what his auntie said, so obviously it was true, but the dark man tsk'd at him whenever he said it so he stopped bothering. But he was a smart boy, and he knew when he was dreaming. He just knew. 

So when he was stripped and put in warm clothes, he repeated it in his head. When he was fed a warm, soft soup with carrots and tiny chunks of meat and little bites of potato, he told himself it was all a dream. And when he sipped on a tiny glass of milk he told himself again and again. And when he was put in a big soft bed and hugged close he told himself again and again and again that it was a dream. 

But when he woke up the next day, still hugged close, still warm, still stuffed full of food and milk and goodness, he knew it wasn't a dream. 

He burst into silent tears of happiness at it all, and the dark man hugged him closer, laughing quietly at his joy, and Harry knew that he was free, that he was good and he deserved it, and the dark man told him many things and didn't yell when he looked at the books on the shelf and let him touch things and didn't take his hand away when Harry tried to hold it. 

And when Harry asked what the black tattoo on his arm meant the man told him that he was something called a potion master, and that he worked for the Dark Lord, which was a title that his boss used because there was this thing called magic, and the dark man told him all about it, and how he was his godfather, and what potions were and what they did and how they all tasted real nasty because of the ingredients they were made with, and how making potions was sort of like making a soup with really, really precise recipes and yes, the dark man would teach him about potions when he went to school. What school? Well apparently there was this huge castle called hogwarts where they would teach him magic! But only when he was eleven. He told the dark man that it was unfair he didn't get to learn magic now! And the dark man told him that maybe if he was good he'd teach him. 

Harry learned that doing a lot of things was being 'good.' Like using manners, and being polite, and all sorts of things. The dark man taught him some stuff called 'et-eat-cut' and it was a super ordered thingy where you ate super polite and used specific u-ten-sills for things and it was super neat and Harry liked it, because the Dursleys sort of just stuffed their faces with food and Dudley never used forks anyways. When he told the dark man this, he wrinkled his nose and huffed, and told Harry that the Dursleys were all idiots anyway. Harry burst into giggles at this. 

Then the Dark Man took him to the bathroom and ran a bath for him and dunked him into the water which didn't burn like when his aunt did it and was actually nice and warm and he was scrubbed real good with a little plush thingy that was yellow called a sponge and he was washed with soap and the dark man helped him wash his hair with a nice smelling liquid thing that was called shampoo and then the dark man dunked him under the water a few times with a tiny bucket and then he put something else on his hair to make it nice and soft and stuff. 

Then the dark man let him play with some ducks and stuff in the bath while he found a towel and then he got out and was put into a little fluffy purple burrito and then he was chased around after he ran off giggling and stuffed into some clothes. And they weren't too big on him, they were super soft and nice and he loved them a lot! And then the dark man put a little 'robe' on him and told him they were gonna go visit the Dark Lord because the Dark Lord wanted to meet him and see if his magic was doing okays and then he would get to explore the Dark Lords manor and it sounded like lots of fun, so the dark man picked him up and they did this thing called appratin' and it was kinda weird but sorta like sliding down a slide and then they went up a _huuuuge_ staircase and into the manor and it was a lot of creams and greens and browns and a bunch of dark reds and it all looked _really_ nice and there was lots of soft sheet things round' the windows and they were all real clean and not dusty at all and it was nice and stuff. 

And the Dark Lord was a bit scary and stuff but he was actually real nice and his eyes were a real bright red and he used a stick called a wand to cast some 'charms' on him and then they let him run around the manor while they talked a lot. 

But Harry was real sure they were pretty friendly cuz' they talked a LOT about one another, and they stayed there for a real long while. Harry wondered if they was together or somethin like that time that Uncle kept goin' on about 'gays' and stuffs and how they was two mens together like how his parents or uncle and aunt were and Harry found it real interesting and he thought he wouldn't mind if they was his dads. Cuz' they were both real nice to him and they didn't hurt 'im at all and they talked a lot but they didn't kiss or nothing and that was real boring cuz he thought it would be nice to have two dads and stuff. 

And then he sat around 'em a lot and learned that the dark man was Sev'rus and that the Dark Lord was called 'Tom' and it was pretty nice, but Harry got pretty tired so he found a couch and a blanket and cocooned on the couch so he was a big red burrito and 't was nice so he slept a bit and when he woke up they still weren't done talkin' so he ran around and talked to paintings and found a really big snake who called him her hatchlin' and she was real nice too and they went around the house so that she could show him 'round and she told him her name was 'gini and she was super nice to him and told him all about snakes and let him pet her. 

And then they both went to bug 'tom' who was actually the Dark Lord but his real name was Tom and they sat in the corner and she wrapped around 'im like a little cinnamon bun and they both took a nap by the fireplace and it was real nice and warm. 

But then they had to go home and they was both a bit grumpy but Harry didn't wanna go because he was friends with 'gini and he was having a good time so Sev'rus let him stay for another half hour and it was goods time. 

~-~ 

Meanwhile, Tom Riddle was quite pleased. The boys magic was well balanced, if a bit of a mess, and his talents were still growing. Interestingly enough, as time went on the boy began to grow a talent for Parseltongue simply by being within a certain radius of himself, and judging by what he could see he was also growing a few other talents by being in the manor around the old magical signatures of his Death Eaters. His magic's eye, his Magesight, told him the boy was also growing a great talent for potion making simply by being around Severus long enough. 

But perhaps disturbingly was the fact that the boy's magic had decided that they would make excellent surrogate parents. The boy's magic had obviously never been around only two specific magical people before, nor had the boy been cared for well, even at the hospital, for him to decide that now was the perfect time to choose his magical parentage. He had already latched onto Severus quite strongly, and the godfather bond was beginning to merge into the growing fatherhood bond the boy had latched onto him. Severus and his fondness for the boy were also growing, and despite himself Tom had also noticed his magic twining with the boys, obviously deciding for him. 

Tom could not say he was disappointed. He had, at one point, wanted a child. He had figured it too much to expect, as time went on, however. Harry had obviously decided that he didn't get much of a choice though, and had bonded both of them as his parentage, his unstable magic settling as their magic accepted and anchored his unstable magic. And Tom's fondness for his potions master had caused his magic to in turn leak out and latch onto the other's, who had started bonding him back years before, though they had both ignored it. 

Tom could not say he was disappointed in this outcome. 

~-~ 

Years later, around when Tom's newly adopted son turned three, Hadrian Riddle Gaunt-Prince's parents finally got together in an official capacity as Tom's sanity began to return in small, even increments. He got his game back together, and drew his forces back, setting his most important Follower's marks to disappear, and replaced them with a small serpent which wrapped around an hourglass, which settled between their shoulder blades. Severus got a different mark, instead a ring which settled on the neck of a potions bottle, right below the back of his neck. Tom got a matching one above his tailbone. 

The followers he would not mind letting go, such as the mad ones like Bella and a few less important, muggle-baiting ones, he did not change the marks from. He kept on his oldest death eaters, like Theodore Nott's grandfather Markus Nott, and he retired Abraxas from his hold upon learning of his sickness so that his magic could focus on healing him of Dragon Pox instead of the link to Tom. Lucius he kept in his employ, with the new modified mark. His wife remained unmarked, though. 

Then, later on Halloween, he brought with him a cousin of his from a different line of the Gaunts, the last who remained. He carved a tiny scar on the head of Charlus Potter, the younger brother of Harry, as his parents remained at a halloween party. He made it a curse scar with a touch of Dark Magic, and then killed and burnt his cousin (who was quite stupid with the Gaunt madness and had creepily lusted after him when he visited to take the man for the plan) with magic. He left the ashes, and the fake, burnt copy of his wand he'd carved from a branch that wasn't even a wand. He dropped an extra, quite burnt copy of his robes and scuffed some ash around into it with his foot, cast a small blasting curse on the ceiling and a airbrushed some acidic green onto the boards behind the crib with a small charm, and promptly left. 

The next day, the newspapers were filled with titles like 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named killed by Boy-Who-Lived Charlus Potter!' and the like. All the while, Tom, quite sane and happy, spent time with his new, almost-fiance boyfriend Severus, and their adopted child, Harry, who was quite happy to be with them. 


End file.
